


doctor can you help me ‘cause something just don’t feel right?

by starbucks22



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29257716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbucks22/pseuds/starbucks22
Summary: “If he was so willing to see someone who isn’t his girlfriend naked, wasn’t that almost cheating anyway?” Remus mumbles, rolling his eyes.AKA: Remus meets someone at Hogsmeade, and they become friends... until one day, when things take a dramatic downturn, and Remus is left wondering if his friend is just a normal friend, or if there’s something more sinister at hand.
Relationships: James Potter and Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black & Remus Lupin, Remus Lupin and James Potter, Remus Lupin and Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, Sirius Black & Marlene McKinnon
Kudos: 4





	doctor can you help me ‘cause something just don’t feel right?

**Author's Note:**

> (Hello I’d just like to make a quick note here just basically saying that I really hope this is realistic and that it is alright, especially since this is based on real life events. Definitely can say though that it is just that– based on it; not everything will be exactly the same as real life because I don’t roll like that lmfao, I’m definitely not running around and playing Quidditch that’s for sure. I hope the characters are all on character, please let me know if they are or if they’re not! I hope you all enjoyed this oneshot.)

Remus would be the first one to tell you that boys are incredibly idiotic. As a boy, he would know. As a boy who lives full time with three other boys, he can confirm that even more than the average wizard, or just the average teenage boy. 

He’s never been more sure of this than in the few months of his seventh year in which he made friends with a fifth year Slytherin boy named Cobey. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” the younger of the two says, after they’ve (mostly accidentally) spent the afternoon in the library with one another, talking and going over homework. Admittedly, Remus, had a really good, peaceful few hours with him. It also doesn’t hurt that Cobey is rather easy on the eyes, with his dark black hair and bright blue eyes. 

“It’s nice to meet you too. Do you want to meet here the same time tomorrow?”

Remus is pleased to see Cobey light up, as if he wants the same thing just as much. 

“Yes,” the boy says. “I’d love that.”

(The next day, they do meet, and they meet at the library every day or every other day for a few more weeks until something gets in the way of their now comfortable routine.)

“I had the oddest thing happen a few hours ago,” Remus says, after saying a quick hello and sitting his stuff down beside his new study buddy. Today, the two of them are not in the library as they usually are– today, Remus’ friends are all very preoccupied with extra Quidditch training– on top of that, the library was way too busy, so for once, Cobey and Remus are occupying the (mostly,) empty Slytherin common room. 

“What’s that?” Cobey, sitting beside him, flips open a textbook, but his eyes are on Remus.

“Some random guy came up to me while I was out with my friends.”

“Earlier at Hogsmeade?”

“Yeah. My friends– I don’t think you’ve met them yet, but–“

Cobey shakes his head. “I don’t need to meet them, not yet.”

“Well, yeah, I know that.” He glances down at his friend’s House tie.

“It’s not even because of that,” the black haired boy rushes to reassure, “Well, that doesn’t help matters any, probably, but I just mean that, I’ve seen Potter in action quite enough and have heard about him from you, same with Pettigrew, though forgive me if I’m wrong, he seems less... I don’t know. Motivated? Talented? That probably sounds bad, but I’m calling it as I’m seeing it. I’d like to meet them later on maybe, but I feel like I already know them pretty well by the way you describe them.”

Remus raises an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting someone.”

To his surprise, Cobey shoots a furtive glance around the room and slams his textbook shut. “No, I’m really not.”

“I have more than three friends.”

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I  know .I have heard enough about Black, thanks so much.” He pauses. “Sirius, I mean,” he says, as if this isn’t already obvious. “This is the Slytherin common room, I hear about that Gryffindor all the time. Do you know how close I’ve come to strangling him to sleep-“ he does not specify what ‘he’ he is referring to, only that he’s likely referring to one of his own fellow Slytherin’s, but he doesn’t seem to realize this as he continues on, “-With one of his own pillows when he goes on long tangents at three in the morning?  So. Many. Rants.  If he weren’t my dorm-mate, I swear I would–“

Remus hears quiet footsteps behind him before the person actually speaks. “Talking shit, are we?”

“I do no such thing.” Cobey sniffs haughtily. “I’m only telling the truth.”

“Lies. You’re slandering me in front of the...” the voice trails off, and the person comes around the couch to stand in front of it. Regulus Black is quite visible now. “...Gryffindor?” 

He shrugs and reopens his textbook. “Oh, yeah. Did I forget to tell you I’d be inviting one of my friends up here to study?”

“Yes, actually, you did. How you forget a detail like that is beyond me.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t sound very upset about it. “Well, I invited a friend of mine up here.”

Regulus barely looks at Remus. “Yes, clearly. Why aren’t you with the Quidditch crowd? A bunch of them from Gryffindor and Slytherin are playing a practice game.”

“Again, I’m going to study.”

“It’s a Sunday. You don’t study on Sunday’s.”

“Okay, truthfully? I didn’t want to get into the whole...” he motions toward the window, where the three of them can see blurring flashes of red and green flying by. “All of that. Which brings me to a question of my own. Why aren’t  you  down there, Mr. Seeker?”

“I value my life.”

He raises an eyebrow at him. “Cool, so what’s the real reason?”

“No, I’m not kidding. I just passed by a big blow up on my way up here. A couple of Ravenclaw kids were really going at it. Upperclassmen, I think.”

Cobey leans in, clearly interested. Remus assumes his friends are right smack in the middle of it, so he rolls his eyes and settles in to get studying while the boy beside him becomes a human bloodhound, if bloodhounds wanted nothing more than some juicy gossip. He’ll just have to wait until Cobey is done talking to Regulus to get his own story out in the open. He doesn’t pay either Slytherin any attention until Regulus– who had eventually fired of standing and had taken a seat on the couch with the other two boys– shoots out of his seat and stands up, stiff as a board. He’s staring out the window with a look of concern on his face.

“What happened now, who did Sirius punch this time,” Remus says more than asks. He flips a page of his book and doesn’t look up. 

That is, until Regulus lets out a low string of curse words that seem to surprise even Cobey,  who literally lives with him. 

“Cobey, I have a tutoring session with a first year Ravenclaw in half an hour. When she gets let up here, let her know I can’t make it.”

“Why can’t you make it? You’re already here.”

He opens his mouth to answer, but pauses. “ Oh bloody hell.”  He’s still staring out the window. 

“Regulus!”

“What?” He snaps out of it. “Right. I have a family emergency.”

Remus tosses his book aside, and takes this moment to address the boy for the first time in... in. He doesn’t even know how long it’s been.

“Family emergency?”

“Have you not been watching the Quidditch game? Sirius just got smacked out of the sky.”

“You  know  I haven’t– forget it, I’m coming with you. Let’s just go.”

(After that, Remus keeps forgetting to bring up the thirty something year old man he met at Hogsmeade who was so nice and protective and just a generally relatable older, perhaps mentor-type figure. Perhaps as just a friend. 

So, when things slowly started changing, he remembers that he hasn’t told anyone about it yet, and maybe it’s too late to start now.)

Remus had previously figured that the professors such as Dumbledore or McGonagall check the students’ mail or have some sort of system to do so. In fact, he thought that was right for so long that he doesn’t realize it’s not until there’s a thirty something year old man asking him for photos a seventeen-year-old should not be providing, amongst the casual conversation a friend makes.

“What’s that?” Sirius looks confused at the envelope that an owl is dropping onto Remus’ lap. 

Remus checks the name and address. “That guy we met at Hogsmeade the other day. Remember him?”

“Yeah, vaguely. You’ve kept in contact with him?”

“Yeah. I think he’s kind of friends with me.”

Perhaps stupidly, because he hasn’t read the letter yet, he hands it off to Sirius as proof to his claim.

He does like the way Sirius opens it, smiles at the sight of Remus’ smile... but he doesn’t like the way that, as Sirius’ eyes scan the page, he starts frowning. At first, it’s not a marked difference– just an absence of his typical grin, but it slowly his displeasure becomes more and more obvious.

“What’s wrong?” asks Remus, who’s sure Sirius was happy for him just a few seconds ago. 

Sirius’ lips purse as he hands the letter over. “This is yours, so I guess you should read it.” He doesn’t sound very pleased; in fact, he seems kind of tense. James, who’s sitting across the table with Lily, shoots him a confused look, but the black haired boy ignores it and waits for Remus to listen to him.

Reluctantly now, Remus unfurls the piece of parchment and lets his eyes slowly go over it.

It doesn’t take him long at all to discover the problem: Sirius knows the second he does, because his lips turn downward instantly, and his brows furrow.

“You see what I mean now?”

“This– this is new.” 

“What’s new?” Even while busy with his girlfriend, James is not one to avoid new news, especially when it comes to someone he considers family. “Remus?”

Remus passes the paper on. This is beginning to become a game of hot potato.

“What the fuck,” James says shortly after receiving it. “He wants you to ‘meet him on a Muggle video device for modeling photos’? Am I hearing this right? You’re not even a model.”

“He’s handsome enough for normal modeling, but he shouldn’t even be thinking about doing this kind of it,” Sirius says grumpily.

“You’re aware I’m a grown adult?” Remus scowls. “And that I can do what I want?”

“Yeah, but do you really  want  to do this?”

“And it’s not normal, Remus, this is some random thirty something year old asking you for nude photos and video for some ‘personal project’ that you don’t even know the details about,” James puts in his own two cents.

Lily, paying attention now, stares at them all, mildly alarmed. “That’s odd.”

“He’s not some random guy, he’s my friend,” Remus informs the group, but none of them seem interested in hearing about it. 

Just when he thought that his friends couldn't be any more interrogative, he hears two voices that are slowly becoming more and more familiar; when he looks up next, Cobey is standing near the Slytherin table, waving him over. Regulus, sitting beside him, is staring down into his eggs and trying not to appear interested in whatever it is the Gryffindor crowd are up to today.

His friends that come from his house all stare, but Lily, who actually used to be friends with someone in Slytherin as well, breaks it first.

"Who is that?" she asks, motioning as subtly as she can over to the other House's table.

"My friend that I study with. I should probably go see what he wants." 

Remus is glad for the distraction. He rises to his feet.

"We're not done with this," Sirius feels inclined to inform Remus. "Se- fuck. I'm being for real, here."

"You were about to say seriously, weren't you?" Remus isn't the fondest of the wordplay on the best day, (only because James wore it out completely within their first few Hogwarts years, which means poor Sirius never really got to use his own pun, which James always found hilarious), but today it only seems to help him out. Sirius pouts at him, and Remus smirks. "I'll be right back, just need to see what he wants."

Unfortunately, as it turns out, Cobey isn't quite the out he thought his friend would be.

"What was going on over there?"

"I have no idea what you mean," Remus, who is lying, lies. 

"He's lying," Regulus says, without looking away from his plate. Remus shoots him a Look.

"You're a traitor!"

"Oh, you have no idea."

"What--"

"Hey! Answer me!" Cobey demands attention. "Reg and I--"

"That's not my name."

"Fuck off, Reg. ANYWAY. We were just talking, as one does--"

"We were plotting someone's demise," Regulus cuts back in again, sounding as if this is a mundane topic.

"We were not doing that. Regulus here was plotting revenge on someone, but not anything demise worthy."

"How about you let me decide that one, seeing as it originally had nothing to do with you?"

"Well, how do we know it had anything to do with you? Snape wasn't even talking shit on you!"

"No, but he did say something to make me furious."

"He wasn't even talking about you! You forget I heard everything he said!"

"I didn't get to hear anything he said," points out Remus, who is curious now. However, they just talk over him.

"Actually, I'd be less angry if he were talking about me earlier, Cobey."

"I'd be more angry! I'm just really not sure you need to issue some sort of payback on the guy for being a bit of a dick." 

"What did Snape do this time?" Remus tries again to get details. This time, he's mildly successful. 

"Messed with my family," Regulus replies.

For some reason, Remus' first thought is of Narcissa.

That is, until Regulus continues, with none of his or Narcissa's decorum and grace.

Regulus shrugs. "Talk shit, get hit."

Cobey bursts into laughter so hard he nearly falls off of his seat. "THAT WAS THE BEST THING I HAVE HEARD FROM YOU IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!"

It's then that Remus pauses, and remembers Regulus' previous statement when jokingly called a traitor: 'Oh, you have no idea.' Is there a chance that that could actually mean something? 

Regulus is still making no indication that him wanting to strike revenge on another student is anything out of the ordinary; even though it very much is, since he never does anything like that, and especially not to an older student. "Anyway, what was going on with you and your other friends over there? You were all in one of those pre-game huddles Potter always does before every Quidditch game. Was there a reason for it, or did you all just decide that now is the time to go, 'Go Go Gryffindor!'"

"I do not do that."

"Your friend does, but this is all very off topic. What was going on over there?"

Remus scowls; his fowl mood, that he had mostly been hiding from his fellow Gryffindors, is back right away. "I got a letter from one of my friends, but the contents of it are a bit..." he hesitates on how to word it, but in the end decides to just steal a word out of Lily's mouth. "...Odd."

"Odd how? Odd like, pranking wise kind of odd, or odd like, 'this probably needs to go to the Aurors' kind of odd?"

"Neither, I think."

"You're sure about this?" The way Regulus stares at him, cold and demanding, is what reminds him that himself and the other boy are really still in such differing Houses. 

Remus isn't, really, but he nods anyway. "I'm sure. It's just that the others over there are so dramatic, you know how it is."

Regulus sighs in a longsuffering away. "Have you MET my family?"

Cobey laughs once more, and the subject is dropped entirely.

(Remus doesn't outright say no to his Hogsmeade friend, but the lack of a yes is understood as a no, and the guy drops the topic, and their friendship quickly goes back to normal, as if nothing weird was asked in the first place. As this continues the way it should, Remus' friends all get less suspicious too. Things continue on like this for a month or so, until something in Remus' adult friend takes a hard left.)

"It's your friend again," Sirius reports one morning during breakfast time. Remus nods and looks down at the small stack of letters he's amassed; one from his mom, one from his dad, one from a Muggle friend his age back home (the friend knew about magic before even meeting Remus, due to having her sister attend Hogwarts), and one from the man that all of Remus' real friends just address as, 'It's your friend again' or 'It's that guy again.' They all know his real name, but none of them care; just because they aren't planning to kill the guy off or send him to some Aurors, doesn't mean that they like him or trust him any. 

"Oh, thanks." 

Remus opens the letter without hesitating, but he quickly comes to regret that. In the letter is the same request that was made over a month ago, with nothing else added in it; just little asides such as, 'you're the only one that I trust with this.' If Sirius notices him scowling at the letter in his hand, he makes no indication of it. 

(From that day on, the letters increase in frequency.)

"Honestly, what is going on?" It takes three days of letters coming for Remus every single day for someone to catch on to the frequency; this time, it's not James or Sirius, but Lily. “These have been coming way too often. I thought it used to be only one full length letter a week. What changed?”

Remus later on swears up and down this is what tips her off for real:

“He did.”

By the time the seventh day of this hits, all of his friends are suspicious all over again, though this time moreso; Remus hasn’t been showing any of the Gryffindors any of the most recent letters. 

That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been talking about it, because of course he has, but significantly less so after one of his friends got stressed out over schoolwork and made an exasperated comment. ( _ “I’m sick of hearing about it if you aren’t going to do something about it.”)  _ On top of that, his insecurities are eating away at him, and with how frequent the requests are for the aforementioned video and photos, he’s becoming more and more certain that he’ll just end up caving in. (A little voice in his head says,  ‘ _it’s fine though, isn’t it? I’m an adult. I never turned him down directly enough. What if this whole mess is my fault? He’s my friend. I should just give him what he wants, and we’ll all be much better off. Plus, it isn’t very hard to find Hogwarts, and that isn’t the most fun thought...’_ But the other voice in his head chatters on, just as loudly: ‘ ** No, it’s not fine! Maybe I’m an adult, by Wizarding standards, but not by much. That’s gotta be weird, right? And yeah, I never turned him down explicitly, I never said no, but I also never said yes, so... isn’t the lack of a proper yes just not consent? This can’t be my fault, this has to be his. I didn’t ask for any of this, not once. I just wish he’d stop and treat me the way he used to. Like real friends do. I shouldn’t give in; I won’t give in.’  ** Then, there’s the loudest voice of all, the one he tries to shove into a box at the back of his head so he can pretend it doesn’t exist, so he can pretend he never even heard it in the first place. ‘ Am I being harassed, or am I just being dramatic?’)

So, Remus tries to be quieter about it all, but when he gets a comment that makes him want to scream, he can’t hold it in.

“‘You’re cute when you blush.’”

Regulus, who’s standing halfway in between the Gryffindor and Slytherin’s tables, (though a few inches closer to Gryffindor), pauses and looks up. “You hitting on me, Lupin?”

“In your dreams. No. Look.” Remus passes his most recent letter over. Lily, sitting across from James at the Gryffindor table, looks up. As soon as she registers what it is the Slytherin boy is reading, she elbows James so he’ll look up; he does, squinting. James doesn’t look away from Remus and Regulus as he turns to elbow Sirius in the gut, but there’s no need; Sirius is already paying attention, and he has a look in his eyes that always spells out trouble.

“Padfoot no,” Peter and James say in rapid unison. Lily wrinkles her nose at what she thinks is an ‘incredibly stupid nickname’, but she’s too focused to care much.

“It’s that guy again isn’t it?” Lily asks as Regulus’ eyes scan the paper in his hands. “Is that why Regulus looks so concerned?”

“Part of it,” Sirius, who the others really should not have been surprised by at this point, has been keeping a careful eye on his brother for days. James looks at him; Sirius shakes his head. Peter looks back and forth in between them before shooting a quick glance at Regulus and mouthing, ‘James’ house?’ Sirius shakes his head again.

“Okay, can I get in on the little secret society you all have going on here?”

“Anything for you Evans,” James mutters distractedly... but he says nothing else, even as Lily glares at him. 

“Are you going to say something, or...?”

“Padfoot?”

Sirius seems to be thinking. “Not until everything’s all finalized. I can’t chance this getting out yet– sorry, Evans.”

“Is this about Regulus?” she asks, before asking, “Is he safe? Are  you  safe? Is this about some home issues, maybe? I’m not trying to pry I swear, I just need to make sure everything’s okay.”

James and Sirius look at one another.

“Does she not know?” the latter of the two asks.

The former of the two shrugs. “I haven’t told her.”

Sirius turns to face Lily. “To answer your questions, yes, I’m being secretive because what’s going on is about Regulus, and yes I am definitely safe. I don’t live at home anymore.”

“You don’t-“ she stops there, sputtering. “How did I not know this? I see you nine months out of twelve!”

“Because you never asked.”

“Why did James not tell me? We practically tell each other everything these days, now that we’re actually friends.”

James shrugs. “You never asked.”

She opens her mouth, ready to say more, but a sudden shout interrupts her. It doesn’t take long at all to find the source– Regulus is back at the Slytherin table, this time holding a different letter entirely, with a look of absolute dismay crossing his face. Beside him, Remus and Cobey are trying to make sure he’s okay, but it’s to no avail.

“I don’t want to talk to you about this, Lupin. It’s none of your business!” they can hear him saying. “Buzz off!”

“I’m just trying to help you!” Remus loudly replies.

“Well, don’t!”

“You’ve just been cursed and you don’t want me to–“

“This has nothing to do with you! Don’t give me that look, Cobey, it has nothing to do with you either!”

“Look, man, we just want to help,” Cobey says. “Do you need the Hospital Wing?”

“What I need is for you to leave me alone for a minute!”

Lily shoots the Slytherin table a wary look. “Should we go see what’s going on over there? I heard something about a curse, but I didn’t see anyone fire anything, did any of you?”

“Probably the letter he’s got is cursed,” Peter guesses, very accurately. The others around him nod, because that does make sense.

“Who would go out of their way to curse a sixteen-year-old who’s just eating breakfast? It’s not like he’s causing any harm.”

James raises to his feet. “I’m closer to him than either of you are. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

Peter gets up too. “Yeah, what he said. I’ll come with you.”

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you!” the voice of Marlene McKinnon puts in her two cents. “Remus is closer to Black than either of you two are, and if the kid won’t let Remus help, why would he ever let either of you?”

“We want to help,” James replies, full of Gryffindor bravery. He and Peter head off, followed by Lily. In the mean time, Marlene turns around in her seat to face Sirius, who’s watching them go.

“Aren’t you going to go with them?”

“Nah. If they’re going to be this stubborn about it, I’m gonna wait it out. They’ll be back here soon.”

“Yeah, but that’s your brother, not their’s. Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Of course I am. I’m just going to wait until the others fail, first.”

Sure enough, the other four return just a few minutes later. Sirius smirks at an amused Marlene.

“Did I tell you so or did I tell you so?”

“Should have put money on it then, dumbass.”

“Anyway, it looks like I’m up.”

James nods. “Yes, actually. Regulus just sent us to come get you.”

“Actually, I believe what he said was, ‘Get out of my face and get me my brother, and if you can’t do that then just fuck off,’” Remus reports. “He’s hurt, so heads up.”

Sirius frowns. “What do you mean hurt? Who hurt him? How bad?”

“Whatever letter was sent to him most recently is cursed, but he didn’t let me see with what or who sent to him. He just kept demanding that I get you.”

Sirius gets to his feet. Marlene watches him stand, now concerned by his concern. She’s not used to seeing him react to much of anything like that, so she’s convinced that it’s something important. 

“It’s probably something to do with our parents. I’ll go handle it.”

He strides away.

“That isn’t a good thing, is it?” Marlene asks, staring after him.

“Not a chance of it,” Remus confirms, before heading off in the opposite direction, his own letter back in hand. 

(For a pleasant few days after that, things go normally; as in, not the weird new normal, but the way things used to be. No letters from a man who can’t seem to get that just because no isn’t said doesn’t mean that yes is, no Black brothers either getting hurt from Quidditch or from their parents, and not even any fighting with Snape beyond the usual. It’s honestly pretty nice. 

Things can’t stay nice forever.)

The next time Lily sees Regulus, the fifth year is being called out of class by McGonagall.

Everyone who’s anyone knows that that means trouble, especially when one stops to think that McGonagall doesn’t teach the class that the Gryffindors and Slytherins are taking together.

Lily scribbles a note down when the teacher isn’t looking and throws it to James, who is sitting next to Marlene. The note hits Marlene instead, hitting her blonde hair and bouncing off of it. Not even pausing to question it, she tosses it to James, who catches it without looking at her.

Her note reads simply: **Should we be concerned?**

James, frustratingly, waits before replying to her.

Probably not. 

**That tells me nothing. Fine. Why shouldn’t we be? How often does Professor McGonagall pull people out of class unless it’s an emergency?**

_ Regulus isn’t hurt anymore, so we don’t have to worry about that, and if it were a family emergency, why would Sirius still be in class with us? _

Lily stops fiddling with her quill for a moment. That... is a good point, actually. It takes only one short glance around the room to see that Sirius is indeed there, sitting just behind James, not paying even the slightest bit of attention. 

James smirks at her.  _ Plus, Evans, Sirius doesn’t look like he’s having an emergency, does he?  _

Two for two. Sirius is fidgeting and he keeps wringing his hands around each other, but he doesn’t look panicked. It’s around then when Lily internally admits that things are probably just as fine as James is saying.

Then, McGonagall walks back into the room. 

Lily and James put their quills down, as do Remus and Marlene, who has also been passing notes to each other.

McGonagall walks past them all. She stops just behind James. 

“Mr. Black,” James can hear her whisper, “Can you meet me in my office for a moment?”

Sirius’ hand closes around his quill. “I didn’t do anything for once. Why am I in trouble?”

She shakes her head. “You aren’t.”

“Is this about why you sent Reg out?”

“Will you please meet me in my office shortly?” It’s a no.

When he nods, she walks out again.

“Mate, what’s going on?” James abandons any form of subtly when he turns around in his seat to talk to Sirius, his back to the teacher. 

Lily decides,  fuck it,  and does the same. “Is everything alright?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius whispers to them. “If I’m right, it should be soon. I need to go.”

He walks out after McGonagall, and his friends are still concerned.

When he comes back, he looks troubled. 

“It’s not finalized yet,” he says, as if that clarifies even one singular thing. “It was supposed to be by now.”

“What is?” Lily and James ask together, before rolling their eyes and waiting for a response. 

“It’s... something that I’m trying to help Regulus with. Or technically, out of.”

Lily looks clueless, but James very much does not. 

“He should just come live with us!” Cries the seventh year, very passionately. “We have the room! Why didn’t you offer that to him?”

Lily decides to let them go at it, so she ignores them and focuses in on whatever it is that Remus, Cobey, and Marlene are whispering to each other about. Conveniently, they’re all sitting right next to each other. Nobody has to turn around or bend down low just to communicate. 

None of them are bothering with notes, even though they probably should have.

“No, I didn’t mean to,” Remus is whispering to Cobey. “To say anything, I mean. But I’m probably next.”

“Next for what?” Marlene wonders. She’s leaning in close to Remus and her hair is falling all over her face.

“To be called into Professor McGonagall’s office.”

“Is that really necessary?”

He shrugs. “It’s probably not, no, but I didn’t tell her all that much. She’ll want to know more.”

“Know more about what?” Lily sees this as a good time to cut in. 

“I told Professor McGonagall about the letters I’ve been getting,” Remus confesses. Now that Lily is paying enough attention, she notices that Marlene and Cobey look rather proud of him. She is too.

“Good!” she whispers to him approvingly. “What all have you said?”

“I passed her the worst of the letters, told her his name, and told her how old he is. Then time came for class, and I haven’t seen her since she walked in to nab Sirius and Regulus.”

So Remus did notice that.  “Yeah, about that. Sirius isn’t being very forthcoming.”

“Oh, it’s all fine,” Remus tells her vaguely. He clearly knows more, even though he isn’t letting on. So, perhaps his lack of negative feelings over it is a good sign. Lily takes it as one. “But back to my thing?”

“Absolutely. What made you want to tell her?”

“I don’t even know. It’s just, I had a meeting with her, about tutoring–“

“You don’t need tutoring,” Marlene points out.

“He means him doing tutoring for other kids,” Cobey, who’s been quiet up until now, explains. 

Remus nods at him. “Yes. That. We were having our meeting, and I don’t know– I guess I just needed to talk about it.”

“Have you not talked about it to your friends?”

“You know I have, Lily. I guess it’s different when it’s with an adult, I don’t know. But anyway, she got really mad about it. Started claiming this and that, ‘This man is harassing you, Remus,’ or she’d point at something he said and she’d go, ‘He’s trying to gaslight you here, Remus,’ or, ‘He’s trying to say he hasn’t done anything wrong.’ I’d say one sentence and she wanted to go on a rampage about it, but class started and she didn’t get to.”

“What sentence could you have possibly said?” Marlene, who’s still not entirely in the know yet, asks.

“You already know about the video and photos he’s been asking me for,” she nods at that and he continues, “And since I never officially told him no, but he would say things like, ‘You’re the only one I trust to do it but you don’t want to,’ or ‘You’re the only one with the right body type but you won’t do it,’ So I figured that he knew I wasn’t going to go for it, you know? But then he kept on asking anyway. I told Professor McGonagall that technically, I never said no, so does it even count as harassment, and she’s been fuming for hours.”

Lily nods. That does sound like McGonagall. “Ah, gotcha. So what do you think happens from here?”

“I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait to find out. He and McGonagall have an agreement to wait until the next day, which is a weekend, to have the talk she wants to have. Which ends up being convenient, because just less than an hour before their agreed upon time, Remus gets a letter much longer than usual, from the same source. 

He whistles at the length of it. 

“What’s up?” Sirius asks him. When Remus looks at him, he sees that his friend looks nearly as tired as his brother does, which says something, seeing how exhausted Regulus looks. Remus does a double take at the paper in his hands and realizes that, likely enough, as soon as he reads this thing, he’ll feel just like that. 

“How’s the moving Regulus out of Grimmauld Place thing going?”

“Did not realize it would be this hard to get custody.”

“You’re barely seventeen trying to get custody of your fifteen-year-old brother, of course it won’t be simple. You’ve got lots of people backing you up though. Why won’t the Potters just do it? They already did it with you?”

“That’s what James has been saying and I kind of agree with him, but Regulus doesn’t want to do that.”

“...So he wants you to have custody over him instead? Even though you’ll probably end up at the Potter’s during breaks anyway?”

“Look, it’s different, he knows me already, he does not know them.”

“He can learn to?”

“It’s not the same thing–“

“Okay, wow. Remus, your parents must really miss you,” Marlene says with a quick wave hello. She gestures at the still unread letter.

"My parents. I forgot they sent me a letter too."

Marlene gives a nod of understanding, before taking a look at the letter and whistling just like Remus did. "Wow. That's gotta be something important."

"Let's hope not, I want to have my breakfast in peace."

So, he makes the regrettable decision to start reading it.

"What the fuck."

"What is it?"

"So. Apparently. Professor McGonagall is way angrier than I thought she was."

"How so?"

"She tracked him down."

_ " What?"  _ Marlene, Sirius, Lily, Peter, and James chorus in a startled unison.

"Why do you think that?" Marlene asks, wide eyed.

"Because the letter starts off with, and I quote: 'Thanks asshole. Now the one person I loved more than anything thinks I'm some perv and broke up with me.'"

"What?"

"His girlfriend ditched him?" an amused sounding Sirius asks.

"How did his girlfriend even  know,  though?" James asks, preaching for the choir. "Would Professor McGonagall really interfere to that extent without any advanced warning?”

“I have no idea!”

“I do,” Remus says. When the others look at him, he’s squinting at the Slytherin table. “Give me a second.” 

He gets up, walks away, and comes back physically dragging Regulus by the arm. Cobey is walking behind them, sipping on some juice, peaceful as could be.

“Yo,” Cobey greets to the Gryffindors, as if nothing abnormal could possibly be happening. 

A few of them wave back. 

“What in Merlin’s name did you  do?”  Remus hisses out, as he shoves Regulus into an empty seat beside Marlene’s friend, Dorcas Meadows. Dorcas eyes the Slytherins suspiciously, but when none of her friends react to it, she doesn’t question it. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m being cursed out! His girlfriend broke up with him, and after some thinking on it, I realized I can’t see McGonagall causing something like that!” He thrusts the letter at his friend, furiously. Regulus barely catches it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh! What did you say! What did you do! When did you do it!”

“Okay okay okay, so I  might  have tracked him down and I  might  have gotten his girlfriend’s name– he wasn’t even suspicious, so don’t you worry– and I might have told his girlfriend what he’s been saying to you...”

“‘Not suspicious’ my ass! He wouldn’t be cursing at me if he wasn’t suspicious, Regulus!”

“I didn’t even say your name!”

“I think it might have escaped your notice that I met him with Sirius, James, and Peter at Hogsmeade!”

“So? What does that have to do with me?”

_“You look like Sirius you absolute dumbass!”_

Regulus blinks, as if this has just now occurred to him. “...Oh. Right. That... might have tipped him off.”

“Yeah, obviously! If I’m already being cursed out in just the beginning of the letter, should I even bother reading the rest of it?”

“You’ll get all curious if you don’t.”

“I hate how right that is.”

So, he reads the rest of it.

“How bad is it?” Regulus asks, when Remus’ face screws up. 

Remus passes him the letter, shaking his head as his Gryffindor friends stare. 

“You all can look too,” he says eventually. His face is still all turned up. 

“Oh. Yeah. Not fun,” Regulus agrees. Sirius snatches it from him, and balks.

Some of it reads: 

I already fucking told my girlfriend about someone helping me and she knew what it meant. 

Sirius shakes his head. “Then she wouldn’t have broken up with him.”

“If he was so willing to see someone who isn’t his girlfriend naked, wasn’t that almost cheating anyway?” Remus mumbles, rolling his eyes. 

I explained it to her long ago, she knew my art was that. And you agreed to help if you could or if you wanted to. You couldn’t and never said you didn’t want to. As I told you many times it’s only for the art work. I’m sorry my art isn’t the same as the new age shit.

“‘Couldn’t say no.’ What?” Marlene looks rather disgusted. “That’s horrid. He can go rot in a hole for all I care.”

“Can I help you push him into said hole?” Lily asks, so angrily that a suspicious McGonagall looks up from her place at the teacher’s table. Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas (who is starting to realize what’s going on), nod in fervent agreement. 

And I got sick of broken promises to help me with it.

“I never promised anything in the first place!” Remus cries, throwing his hands exasperatedly in the air. “I never said yes!”

“Does this man just not know what a promise is?” Dorcas asks rhetorically. Marlene rolls her eyes, nodding. 

I wasn’t hurting anyone Remus. You didn’t say no. 

“You didn’t say yes!” Marlene, Dorcas, and Lily cry out as one. McGonagall shoots them another glance, this one longer and more doubtful than the one before. 

I got nothing to hide nor was I ever going to hurt anyone.

Cobey scowls. “I spy with my little eye, a little bitch.”

This art. It’s a pain in the ass and the only way I know how to draw. So now. I’m never going to draw. I’m sick of people labeling me something that I’m not. 

Together, way too loud for even the normally high volume of the Great Hall, Regulus, Cobey, Sirius, and James all shout out: “THEN DON’T BLOODY DRAW ANYMORE!” Lily and Marlene are both muttering under their breath, saying something about ‘nobody is labeling you anything except for what you are.’ 

And I was wrong to think people would understand my art.

“There’s more,” Remus says faintly. To his dismay, there’s more of the parchment to unfold.

“We’re going to cause a scene if we don’t calm down,” Regulus, who looks very much as if he’s going to explode instead of calming down, says.

Regulus does not end up knowing what the rest of the parchment says, or at least not that day he doesn’t: McGonagall is not pleased with what is clearly a suspicious scene, so she makes her way on over. 

“What is going on here?”

The teenagers all go silent, looking at one another in hopes that someone else knows what’s the best thing to say– McGonagall still knows so little about the whole thing, and nobody knows if they should be the one to spill it and try their best to relinquish what little control they possess to an adult they still aren’t sure they can trust all the way, even after all these years– 

...So, the responses they separately come up with to cover up for Remus may not be the smoothest in the world. 

“I’m having family issues!” Lily is the first to speak. 

Regulus is quick to follow. “My best friend is having a crisis.”

Cobey rolls his eyes. “I just had a heart attack.” 

Sirius chimes in, “They were trying to help me come up with ways to evade Slughorn.” 

James nods, slinging an arm across his brother’s shoulder. “That’s true, Professor! Slughorn isn’t really fond of us at the moment, you see.”

“Is he ever?” Asks McGonagall, who looks amused along with her suspicion, now. “I should have expected this group to come up with ridiculous excuses. What about you four?” She points at Dorcas, Marlene, Remus, and Peter. “What have you all got to say for yourselves?”

“I’m sorry if we were screaming?” Dorcas suggests, but she doesn’t sound very confident about the so called apology. Or, you know, sorry. 

Marlene sits up straighter as she comes up with a bad excuse on the fly. “I was picking a fight with the Slytherins, ma’am.”

That would have had the potential of working...if there weren’t two Slytherins with her, getting along with her, right as she said that.

“Aw man,” Marlene doesn’t take long to realize her mistake. 

“Mr. Lupin? Any explanations?” McGonagall shoots him a resigned look, so she’s not expecting him to actually nod at her, face serious. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I think we need to have a talk.”


End file.
